


Travel like a Cooper

by ccshbh



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, don'texpectdrama, likeallofmyworks, thisisgoingtobetoothrotttingfluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2020-12-14 17:41:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21019685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ccshbh/pseuds/ccshbh
Summary: Jughead is a travel photographer.Betty is a travel instagrammer.She finds him on the side of a road. It escalates from there.This is based on a glorious edit by the fabulous @oryoucouldstay.https://oryoucouldstay.tumblr.com/post/187121726179/a-bughead-soulmatemeet-cute-social-media-auhttps://oryoucouldstay.tumblr.com/post/186870943849/a-bughead-soulmatemeet-cute-social-media-auIf you have a tumblr, GO to her blog and reblog everything she ever did. You will not regret it. Its magic.





	1. The Alps

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oryoucouldstay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oryoucouldstay/gifts).

He is going to die here.

It’s plain and simple. He is going to die in the middle of the Austrian alps, next to a mountain road, that no car seems to ever drive on.

Okay, maybe he is exaggerating a little bit. After all, he just has a strained ankle. But he can’t put any weight on his left foot and his phone is useless in this part of the mountains. If there won’t be a car driving by any time soon, he’ll probably have to spend the night out here and if there is anything he isn’t prepared for, it’s that.

Jughead sighs and leans back against the bright red backpack he’d propped up against one of the trees lining the road.

“If I die up here, at least it will be easy for them to find my body, right next to this bright, red monster of a backpack” he thinks.

The thought that the only nice gesture Cheryl Blossom ever had with him is going to alert rescue forces to his dead body, is somewhat weirdly fitting. Jughead would even feel a little thankful for it, if his best friends’ girlfriend hadn’t thrown the backpack towards him while unpacking their Christmas presents on December 25th with the words:

“Here hobo, so you’ll have at least one tasteful item on your trip around Europe.”

Thinking about it, this is all Toni’s fault anyway.

“If you start out in Salzburg, you have to go up to the mountains Jug. They are gorgeous, Jug. You’ll be able to take such amazing pictures for the magazine, Jug.”

Well, here he is, stranded in the middle of the, admittedly very beautiful, alps, with a strained ankle, NO pictures and rapidly decreasing levels of hope.

Why, on god’s green earth did Toni ever think this was a good idea? Him, Jughead Jones, raised in the concrete jungle of New York, a kid that had never even left the city until he had scored a job with _Atlantis _(“a small but stable, little travel magazine”, as his boss liked to call it), in the Austrian Alps. By himself. He probably should have thought this through a little more.

Jughead lets out a breath and closes his eyes.

“Okay Jughead, deep, calm breaths. You need to think straight. It doesn’t look like anyone will be coming by here anytime soon and night is about to fall. You’ve been camping before; you should be able to solve this.”

But as soon as he thinks the last few words, he also realizes that he’s been camping exactly two times, because he LOATHS it. He knows that that is not the best precondition for a travel journalist, but seriously, there is a reason why hotels, caravans and Air BNB’s are a thing. And that is mainly because no one in their right mind wants to sleep on a hard floor and in an uncomfortable sleeping bag that is probably going to be bug infested, as soon as you survived the first night.

Which brings him back to his initial thought: He is going to die out here.

_Vroom!_

Jughead’s head snaps up. For a moment he thinks he hallucinated the sound, but then he hears it again and he is pretty sure he has never been this relieved in his entire life. That was definitely the sound of a car engine and it is coming closer. Hurriedly, he scrambles to pull himself up and support his weight against the tree next to him. His ankle flares up when, in his rush, he accidentally puts weight onto it, and he hisses in pain. He takes a deep breath and straightens a little, standing on one foot and trying to concentrate on the sound. It is still coming closer and the car can’t be too far away from him now.

“Please be someone helpful, please be someone helpful” he mumbles, just before the car comes around the curving. Jughead waves his right hand maniacally and it slows down. He sags against the tree and nearly faints in relief. Looks like he is not going to die after all.

The car door on the driver’s side opens and a woman with blond hair that falls over her shoulders in soft waves exits. It’s only fitting, he thinks, that his heaven-sent rescuer also looks like an angel.

_“Geht es Ihnen gut?”_

Jughead falters a little. The angel speaks German. He doesn’t.

“English?” he tries dumbly and now it’s the angel that seems relieved.

“Oh, thank god, my German is horrible. What happened to you?” she says and comes closer.

“I overlooked a tree root and strained my ankle.” Jughead answers and the angle’s face scrunches up.

“Sounds hurtful. I think the car should have a first aid kit, that should at least help to pitch you up until I can get you back to your hotel. Or do you have an apartment here?”

Jughead shakes his head. “No. I’m here for work. I’m at this little hotel at a farmhouse. _Raucher_… something.”

The angel’s face lights up.

“_Raucherbichlgut?” _she asks and Jughead nods.

“I knew your face was familiar. I’m there too and I think I might have seen you at breakfast this morning.”

“Oh right. You were the one with the book.” Jughead says.

He remembers now. He’d noticed her, because unlike everyone else – and Jughead includes himself there – she hadn’t been sitting on her table with a phone or a laptop, but an open book on her lap.

The angel smiles and gestures for him to lean on her. When he tries not to put his full weight on her, she scoffs: “Don’t you dare play the hero here, I’m not as petit as I look.”

The tone of her voice makes him lean into her more immediately and he limps over to her car, where she opens the back door and ushers him inside.

“I’m Betty, by the way.” she says and lightly pushes at his shoulders, so he’ll slide back further and probs both his feet up on the seat covers.

For a moment, Jughead has a brief flash of not wanting to get the seats dirty, but then Betty already tugs off his left shoe. His sock goes next and then she is inspecting his ankle. Her touch is careful and the look on her face is determined in a way that makes a brief thought of: “God, she is really attractive” flash up in Jughead’s mind. It’s gone as quickly as it came when he realizes that he hasn’t introduced himself yet.

“I’m Jughead.” he answers and expects her head to snap up and look at him with confusion. That the normal reaction to his name after all. But surprisingly she doesn’t, just keeps her eyes on his ankle and answers:

“I’d say nice to meet you, but I feel like that is unfitting under these circumstances.”

“That sounds about right.” Jughead answers.

Betty looks up and flashes him a sweet smile, then gets back on her feet and rounds the car to open the trunk. She picks up his backpack on the way and swings it over her shoulder in one swift motion.

_Yup, definitely attractive. _

He curses himself for the thought just a second later. She is basically saving his life here and all he can do is think about the fact that she is hot. He really needs to get his priorities straight.

“You were right, it looks like it is only strained not broken.” he hears her voice from behind him. “But you should maybe let a doctor take a look at it.”

Before Jughead can answer, she is back at the car door with the first-aid kit and lifts his foot lightly to slip onto the back seat and prob it onto her lap. Her touch is still soft, and it stirs something inside him, that Jughead isn’t sure how to categorize. He still winces when she puts the ice pack onto his ankle.

“I would, but I have no idea where to go. And I can’t exactly operate a car like this.”

Betty just shrugs. “If you want, I can ask at the hotel and then I’ll drive you there.”

“You already saved my life and I don’t want to interfere with your holiday plans.”

She gives him a pointed look. “Aren’t you dramatic? And believe me, you are not interfering with any of my plans. I'm here for work too and I run an Instagramaccount for travel, if anything you'd give me more likes."

Jughead clutches a hand over his chest and hisses in mock pain. “And I thought you did this out of altruism.”

Betty laughs. It makes her whole face light up and somehow that makes her even more attractive.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to use you for Instagram fame.”

She tugs at the bandage one last time, then slips out from under his foot carefully and places it back onto the seat covers. He immediately misses her touch.

“Try to keep it still now.” she orders. Even the way she closes the door is soft and Jughead cranes his neck to follow her way around the car.

When she slips into the front seat, she locks eyes with him in the back-view mirror and says: “Alright, lets get you home.”


	2. Salzburg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yay, I'm back with a second chapter. Only took me a billion years. I really hope I can give you the next update faster. 
> 
> I've been trying to do Salzburg justice here, but I haven't come anywhere near the beauty this wonderful city is in real life. So, everyone of you, come here and see for yourself. I'll be your personal tour guide.

Betty is at Jughead’s door at 8 a.m. the next morning.

He had been a little reluctant to go see a doctor because despite his dramatic antics he had reasoned that it was “just a strained ankle” and she “really didn’t have to drive him around”. But Betty has never been one to abandon people, especially not the one’s she finds injured on the side of a mountain road.

Plus, although she has only known Jughead for roughly 15 hours now, she finds that she enjoys his company. He is funny, whip smart and had – probably to distract himself from the pain in his ankle – started up a pretty interesting conversation about Toni Morrison, when he’d seen the tattered copy of “Beloved“ on her passengers’ seat.

So, for all these reasons and because she likes meeting new people and making friends, she knocks onto the door of room number 12 three times in quick succession. There is a rustle behind the door, a few quick thumps of what seems to be Jughead hopping towards the door and then he opens it.

The sight of him catches Betty a little of guard. First of all, he is lacking the beanie, he’d been wearing yesterday, and her brain suddenly has the incredibly unhelpful urge to supply her with the information that he has great hair and she’d really like to run her fingers through it. Secondly, although he has clearly been up for a while, he still looks a little bit sleepy and the smile he gives her as a greeting is incredibly cute. HE is cute.

“Oh my god, Betty, you are 22 years old and not a teenager with a crush, get yourself together.” a voice in her head – that sounds uncannily like her mother – scolds her and she shakes the thought off.

“Good morning” she says brightly instead. “Ready for breakfast and your doctor’s appointment?”

“Well, not fully, but that is just because I didn’t have coffee yet.” he answers.

“Is that her? God Jug, hold the phone up, I want to see her.”

Betty winces at the female voice, that seems to be coming out of nowhere. Only now she realizes that Jughead is holding his phone and had apparently been just Face Timing someone. A female someone. Something that feels a little bit like disappointment settles in her chest and makes her feel annoyed at herself. She’s known him since last night, why is this bothering her?

“Relax Topaz.” Jughead huffs and brings up the phone again. “It is too early for you to yell at me. It’s also too late in New York for you to be awake. I told you I’m fine, so GO to bed, or annoy Cheryl, or whatever it is you usually do at 2 a.m.”

The woman on his screen just scoffs. “Don’t you Topaz’ me, Jones. Just give her the phone so I can thank you for saving you idiot.”

Jughead rolls his eyes at the phone, but it seems to be good naturedly, then sits down on the bed and gestures for Betty to join him. She hesitates, looking at her watch a little nervously. They have an appointment in 2 hours and they still haven't had breakfast. There is no time for a prolonged Face Time conversation with Jughead’s… whatever.

Jughead seems to catch that though and says: “It won’t take long, come sit.”

So, Betty does and shyly waves at the screen and the girl with bubblegum pink hair. “Hi there.”

“Betty, that is my best friend and technically the one to blame for my swollen ankle, Toni Topaz. Toni, that’s my guardian angel, Betty Cooper.”

Betty can feel herself blush at the description.

“Hey, its not my fault you can’t deal with nature!” Toni protests.

“You’ve known me for 15 years. When has me and nature EVER been a good idea?”

“Whatever” Toni says, waves her hand at Jughead in a clear “just shut up”-gesture and turns to Betty.

“Thank you for saving him, even though he is an idiot. My life would be kind of boring if I didn’t get to annoy him every day.” she says in a still lightly teasing tone. “I owe you.”

“It was really no big deal.” Betty answers and her eyes flick in between the screen and Jughead. He is smiling at her again and she can feel herself blush even harder.

“Well, now that you’ve thanked her, are we allowed to go and have breakfast? I think I can feel my stomach starting to try eating itself.” Jughead urges and Toni rolls her eyes again.

“Yeah, yeah, for everyone’s sake, we really shouldn’t let you go hungry. Goodnight, loser. Goodnight Betty!”

Betty waves awkwardly at the screen again, as Toni vanishes. She gets up from the bed and once Jughead manages to stand on his healthy leg, she gestures from him to drape his arm around her shoulder, so she’ll be able to help him make his way downstairs. Just like the night before he hesitates for a moment, but then he does lean onto her.

They make it downstairs slowly and once they finally reach the breakfast room, they are both slightly out of breath. It takes another ten minutes to maneuver Jughead’s foot into a position that neither makes him have to twist his whole upper body 180 degrees to eat nor puts pressure on his ankle, but they manage. The owner that already offered driving him to the ER last night looks over at them worriedly from the breakfast bar.

Betty gets back on her feet: “I’ll go and tell her that everything is fine. What do you want to eat?”

Jughead looks over at the owner. “You both worry too much. It is just a strained ankle.”

“It still needs to be checked Jughead.”

He sighs and lifts his hands in defeat. “Alright, alright. Can you get me some of the scrambled eggs?”

…

They leave the doctor’s office four hours later, with Jughead on crutches and the doctors firm recommendation to not put any weight on it for three days.

“THREE days!” Jughead exclaims when they are back in the car. “I can’t take pictures like this. I have a deadline in three days! I can’t just leave my boss hanging; this is the first major tour he sent me on, and I fuck it all up within the first day. Amazing.”

He leans his head back onto the head rest, closes his eyes and lets out a groan. “Maybe I should just get on a plane back to New York. This is just really not a good start to a trip.”

Betty looks over at him, worrying her lower lip. She might have a solution to this, but she is a little hesitant to offer it. After all, they’ve only known each other for a few hours and maybe he doesn’t even want her company anymore?

Very thankful you saved me, thanks for the trip to the doctors, but I can manage on my own from now on.

But then on the other hand… It is not like she has a schedule. She wanted to do a roundtrip of Europe, and she did have a few cities in mind, yes, but thanks to the nature of her job she is mostly independent in where she wants to go and how long she can stay there. Apart from a few product placements, she doesn’t have any responsibilities she has to meet and those can be done anywhere. Originally she planned to stay in Salzburg only one more day, but another two days wouldn’t really hurt her nor her budget too much.

“Maybe, I could help you with the pictures. I’m not too bad at taking them.”

Jughead opens one eye at that.

“You would do that? Don’t you have places to go to? You should enjoy traveling, not having to nurse some random guy you found on the side of a mountain road back to health.”

Betty shrugs. “My travel plan is not really fixed, and I can basically go wherever I want, as long as it creates enough content for my Instagram account, and I can get there by train. And trains leave every day, so it wouldn’t really hurt if I stayed a little longer to help you out.”

Jughead lifts his head, his face a little brighter now. “You would really do that?”

“Of course. And I promise, the pictures are not going to be too shitty.”

“I know they won’t.” he says and from the corner of her eye Betty thinks she might see him blush a little. “I might have looked at your Instagram when I couldn’t sleep last night. You really have an eye.”

“Thank you.” Betty answers and can’t help but smile. “Did you have any specific places in mind?”

“I mean, for today it was mostly the famous spots. You know the Mozart Houses, the opera, Mirabel Palace. Tomorrow I wanted to go out to Mondsee that village, that has the Sound of Music church, apparently there is also a viewpoint there that gives you spectacular pictures of the lake. I was also supposed to get some pictures in the mountains but… well, you know that story.”

“I have a BILLION mountain pictures, you can have some of them, if you want. And we’ll take care of the rest. We could actually start right now, if you feel up to it?”

“I mean… gotta need to break these in, right?” he says and points to the back seat where his crutches are.

“Well, let’s go then.”

…

They manage to visit the two Mozart houses, the cathedral and the opera, before Jughead exclaims that he has to sit down and eat something, or he’ll die. Betty thinks that he is being a little dramatic, but she has noticed that he is a little out of breath by now and maneuvering all the other tourists with crutches seems exhausting.

They choose a small restaurant, located in one of the allies on the left of the main shopping route that apparently sells traditional Austrian food. Jughead takes a deep breath once he slides into the chair and immediately grabs for the menu.

“I’m starving.” he states.

Betty raises and eyebrow at him: “You ate about 3 kg of scrambled eggs this morning. How can you be starving?”

“I’m a growing boy, Betts.” Jughead laughs and then drops his gaze back to the menu.

Betts. _Betts. **Betts.**_

Betty is not really sure why the use of a nickname makes her blush, but she can feel that she is, and she lifts her menu in front of her face hoping Jughead won’t see.

In the end Betty decides on a regular Schnitzel, while Jughead inhales a sweet treat called “Knockerl” that would make her mother hyperventilate.

“Feeling better?” Betty asks, when Jughead drops his folk and leans back in his chair.

“So much better.” he smiles. “Onwards?”

“Onwards.”

…

By the end of the day, Betty finds herself sitting at the river, with Jughead next to her, eating an overpriced "bubble waffle" with strawberrys and cream Jughead insisted on paying, and wrapped up in a conversation about Alfred Hitchcock. At some point during the day, their conversation had turned from the sights they were visiting to… well everything else. It flows easily and she doesn’t know why, but she feels like he gets her. Only a few people in her life ever have. None of them did it as quickly as him.

“And that is why ‘the birds’ is a masterpiece” Jughead ends his monologue about said movie and she laughs.

“Okay, okay, you win. I can’t argue against that.”

“You don’t just say that, because I bored you to death?” he smirks and her heart stutters a little.

“Not at all.” Betty answers and looks out onto the river. “Its nice here.”

Internally she curses herself for her inability to put what she is really feeling into words right now. Because it is not just “nice” here. Actually, she hasn’t felt this at peace in a while.

“Yeah.” Jughead answers and follows her view towards the river. There is a comfortable silence for a while, then she sees Jughead suppress a yawn from the corner of her eye.

“Do you want to go back to the hotel?”

_Please say no. Let’s say we can sit here a while longer and talk about Hitchcock a little more. We can talk about whatever you want._

“I’m… a little tired” Jughead admits but seems reluctant.

_Shit._

“Let’s get you back to the hotel then. We can explore more tomorrow.”

Jughead nods and with the help of his crutches maneuvers himself into a standing position. Betty gets up too and dusts of her cloth. They walk along the river and back to the car in silence, but when he slides into the passenger seat, Jughead says: “Betty?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”


	3. Travel companion

Two days later, Jughead is sitting on his hotel room bed, after having spent most of the evening finishing his first article of the series. He’s spent the better part of yesterday on a bus with Betty, visiting all the lakes around Salzburg they were able to fit into 12 hours. He’d gotten some breathtaking pictures in, including one of her on a stand-up paddle board, she’d immediately snatched for her Instagram profile.

If he is being honest, by now, he is a little enamored by her. She is smart, funny and kind but he can see that there is also something deeper to her, something that intrigues him. After she’d said goodbye to him at his hotel room door, he’d spent most of the night pondering if it would be a good idea to just ask her to accompany him for the rest of his trip.

Today, they’d been back to the doctors where Jughead had gotten rid of the crutches and then had celebrated that fact with the greasiest burger they could find, but by the end of the day, he was not even the tiniest step closer to an answer to his question. So, know, he’s talking to the only person he knows that can be helpful in this kind of situation:

“The bottom line is, you like her, and you want to ask her to travel with you?” Toni states and shifts on her couch to sit cross legged. “So just ask?”

Jughead pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out an annoyed huff: “Toni, we’ve been through this, I can’t just ask her.”

“But… why?” Toni says and frowns at him. “I thought we left the awkward and weird you that doesn’t want to talk to people behind after college?”

Jughead scoffs. “That was rude. And it’s not that I don’t want to ask her, or that I don’t want to talk to her. Its more the fact that I don’t want to do anything else, that is the problem.”

“Seriously Jug, you make this way more complicated than it is. You said she doesn’t have a fixed travel plan and can go wherever she wants. So, tomorrow morning, you just go up to her, ask her if she wants to be your travel companion and go from there. You don’t have to tell her that you developed a crush on her in record time.”

“I didn’t develop…” Jughead starts but pauses and reroutes at the look on Toni’s face. “Okay, maybe I did develop a crush on her, but… what if she doesn’t even want someone to travel with? Or if we travel together and by the end of it, she is just like: Hey, great, nice trip, thank you and goodbye.”

He knows he is overthinking this. He knows that the worst that can happen is that Betty will say: “No thank you, but I’d like to keep traveling alone.” and that if that happens, he should be able to finish his own trip, go home and live the rest of his life. Still, the thought of it, makes a feeling well up in his chest, that he’d thought had been buried a long time ago.

“Jug.” Toni says softly. “Listen, I know you’ve been through a lot. And I understand that after all the bullshit that happened with your family, you choose very carefully who you open up to, but from what you’ve told me about her, it is worth a try. You are a great guy and she’d be stupid to not see that. So at least, give it a chance.”

Jughead closes his eyes and exhales slowly. Maybe Toni is right. Maybe he should just take the leap and put himself out there. Maybe it will be worth it. He opens his eyes again and nods at his best friend.

“I’ll ask her tomorrow” he decides, and Toni claps her hands together in such girlish way that it startles him for a second. Cheryl is really rubbing off on her.

“Great!” she chirps. “Well, you better get some sleep then. And let me know how it went, okay?”

“You’ve been turning into quiet a gossip queen lately, has anyone told you that?”

She rolls her eyes at him. “I want to see my best friend happy, so sue me. Talk tomorrow loser.”

…

Jughead spends a good part of the way to breakfast the next morning internally debating how to best ask Betty if she wants to travel with him. He feels like he can’t just blurt it out, that he needs to ease into it in some way, but for once in his life, words are failing him. There is just no way to ask her in a nonchalant or even elegant way. He figures that he’ll just have to sit down on the table, ask her straight away and brace himself for whatever the answer will be.

He takes a deep breath before he sets foot into the breakfast room, mind set on the question he is about to ask her, but forgets all about it, when he sees her sitting at what he secretly dubbed “their table” in his head, frowning at her phone. She is clearly upset about something and he can’t help but feel offended on her behalf. He can’t believe there are people out there that have the nerve to make someone as kindhearted as Betty upset.

With three big strides he crosses the room and slides into the chair opposite her. She is still frowning at her phone, not noticing him.

“Morning Betts.” he says carefully, and she looks up, seemingly startled by his sudden appearance. It takes her a moment, then she hurriedly tugs her phone away and puts on a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Good morning.” she chirps, and her voice is just an octave too high. “How is your ankle?”

“Its fine” Jughead answers and leans over the table, so he can lower his voice. Whatever made her upset, probably shouldn’t be shared with the rest of the guests that are present. “But why don’t you tell me what got you so upset?”

Her cheery attitude falters immediately and she gapes at him. “Was it… was it that obvious?”

“I don’t know if it was for anyone else, but to me it seemed like you were very upset about what you had on your phone just a few minutes ago.”

She lets out a sigh, then fishes her phone out of her pocket again and puts it on the table between them. He watches her unlock it and opening her Instagram notifications, before she pushes it a little closer to him.

“Read the first three comments.”

He does and gets even more offended at her behalf. All three of the comments are made by the same account and all three of them are not just highly offensive, but also clearly sexist and beyond disgusting. A sudden urge to hurt the person that says such nasty things about her flares up in him.

“Who the hell comments this kind of stuff?” he asks, and it comes out a little more furious then he intended to. Betty winces and he immediately adjusts his tone. “I’m sorry, but honestly, what Neanderthal is writing this kind of things?”

Betty takes her phone back and looks at him nervously. “It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time.” he states and leans back in his chair. He thinks he sees her face lighten up a little.

“Okay, well.” she wrings her hands and looks down at the perfectly white tablecloth between them. “You know, normally, I don’t care about this kind of comments. I’m a woman on Social Media, with a decent following and I travel for a living and often too places that are on the warmer side of the spectrum, so there are also some bikini pictures here and there and they always received stupid comments. Normally I just block these people and carry on. But this guy… well its different with him. I… I know him. We’ve grown up in the same town and he… always had an eye on my sister. But she never really showed any interest in him. So, after he finally realized that she didn’t want anything to do with him, he came after me. I did the same thing my sister did, and I thought once he went off to college, everything would calm down. And well, it did, I didn’t hear from him until my Instagram took off. When he found it though, he started on this rampage about how he needed to tell the world about what kind of bitches me and my sister really are and that I don’t deserve the success I’m having. I’ve blocked the first two accounts, but he keeps coming back and Instagram doesn’t do anything about it.”

Jughead is genuinely shocked. He knows that Social Media is not a nice place, especially not for women, but this guy was a whole other category of asshole.

“So, this… Archie guy, is doing this because you bruised his ego in High School?” he asks, and she nods. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Betty that is harassment, you need to do something about that.”

“I’ve tried.” she says and shrugs helplessly. “I even went to the police, but they said they can’t do anything as long as he is just commenting. They said if they had to prosecute every nasty comment someone wrote on Social Media they’d never stop working.”

“But…” he is positively furious on her behalf now and about to ask her if she knows where this guy lives, just so he can send some old friends there to scare the hell out of this motherfucker.

“Jug.” she says softly, and her hand is suddenly on his. The simple touch feels like he’s gotten hit by a lightning and suddenly all he can think about is how good her hand seems to fit with his. “Its fine, really. I’ll just block him again and hope he doesn’t come back. That’s all I can do right now. I’m not going to let him ruin my trip. Can we please talk about something else now?”

He still isn’t quite sure that this conversation should end here, but the look on her face is almost pleading, so he changes the topic reluctantly.

“Okay. I, uhm…”

(Isn’t it funny how quickly range can change into nervousness?)

“I actually wanted to ask you something.”

She looks at him curiously and he takes that as a good sign.

“Well, I kind of really enjoyed these last few days and you said that you really didn’t have a plan or schedule for your trip around Europe, so I was kind of wondering… I mean it would be nice to have a travel companion. And well, I wondered if you’d like to keep on traveling with me. Only if you want of course, if you prefer to keep going on your own that is totally fine and…”

(He is rambling now, and he knows it. If he could only figure out why his mouth doesn’t work properly whenever he is around her.)

“Seriously, its just a suggestion, if…”

“Jug.” she interrupts him, again in that soft tone. “I think that is a great idea.”

“You do?” he asks dumbfoundedly and she laughs at the expression on his face.

“Yes, I do. What is next on your list?”

He stares at her for a second, not able to believe that she really agreed to come with him.

“Prague” he answers.

“The Golden City” Betty states and her smile widens even more. “I can’t wait.”


	4. Prague

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh glorious day, I FINALLY managed to finish this chapter and it only took me.... over 2 months. 
> 
> I'm really sorry. I don't even have a good excuse. I also apologize for the stereotypical, probably all wrong portraying of a West Virginia accent in this chapter. I have exactly two sources for how it sounds: a Netflix documentary and the way Skeet Ulrich says the word "boy".
> 
> I still hope you enjoy reading it!

They leave for Prague early the next day. So early in fact, that Betty falls asleep on the train about halfway through their 5-hour journey. She wakes an hour later, with an uncomfortable crick in her neck and to Jughead mumbling something into his phone.

While she blinks awake, she catches him saying: “Of course Paps. Y’all stay save, will ya? I’ll talk to you later.” For a moment, her sleep-fogged brain considers the option of her having woken up in an alternative universe, where her newly found travel companion has suddenly become Southern, but then Jughead smiles over at her and says: “Did you sleep, okay?” with the distinctive New York City lilt she is accustomed to.

She manages a sleepy smile and blinks against the light twice more before her head clears enough of sleep to answer: “It was fine.” And then, after a second of contemplation adds: “Did I dream that, or did you just go from Southerner to New York City native in about 0.5 seconds?”

A small blush creeps up the part of his ears she can make out under his beanie. “You heard that?”

“You said y’all.”

He gives a small shrug. “My dad is from West Virginia. It’s not exactly Southern, but he has a distinct way of talking. He met my mom in New York, so I was born and raised there, but well… I’m 24 and he still calls me boi. With an “I” at the end. My sister and I switch back and forth depending on which of our parents we speak to.”

“Boi?” Betty asks with a chuckle.

Jughead shrugs again. “Don’t all parents have some weird terms of endearment for their kids? I bet your mom has one for you.”

Betty immediately sits up a little straighter at the mention of her mother. 

Jughead must notice the change in her demeanor, because his facial expression changes from teasing to worried. “Betts, are you okay?”

Betty clutches at her seat to ground herself and takes a deep breath. “Yes, I’m fine, sorry. I just… my mom is a little bit of a sensitive topic. She… well let’s say she is not the kindest woman on the planet, and I don’t…”

She stops abruptly when Jughead’s hands suddenly covers hers. “Hey. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. It’s fine. Parents are complicated. Trust me, I’m the king of insecurities caused by shitty parenting.”

He doesn’t elaborate on his statement and Betty is glad for it. Instead, they spend the rest of their trip in a vivid discussion about Ernest Hemingway and Merry Shelley and not for the first time in the last few days, Betty catches herself thinking that she could just sit here and talk to him for the rest of her life.

…

Prague is, by all means, a surprise.

As much, as Betty loathes stereotypes, she couldn’t help but base at least some of her expectations on the shitty documentaries about former communist countries she’d had to endure during her history classes. Part of her expected the whole city to be grey, with a certain aura of doom and gloom surrounding everything, but Prague is the exact opposite.

She doesn’t know where to look first. The whole mix of modern architecture, beautiful old pre-communism buildings and the occasional architectural eyesore from the Soviet Years is incredibly fascinating and the way the late spring sun makes everything glow suddenly makes her understand why Prague is called the “The Golden City”.

Jughead and her check into a small and cozy hotel right in the town center and she is only half way through unpacking, when he is at her door again, claiming that he is starving and they NEED to find some place where they can have lunch.

They decide on a place that they find more by chance then choice. It offers traditional Czech cuisine and once more, she watches Jughead nearly inhale his Beef Tatar for starters and after that his main dish of roasted pork with a side of Bohemian dumplings. She looks down at her own plate of goulash (its technically Hungarian not Czech, but her mouth watered just thinking of it) and wonders where he puts it all. He doesn’t look like the kind of person that would consume portions as large as the ones she has seen him eat during the last four days. He is long and lean and muscular in all the right places…

“God Betty, get it together.” she silently scolds herself. If she keeps ogling him like that, she’ll only make him uncomfortable and that is the last thing she wants, because admittedly, she does very much enjoy his company.

They keep eating in that comfortable silence that she has experienced only with maybe a handful of other people, but when Jughead has cleaned off his plate roughly five minutes later, while at the same time she hasn’t made it halfway through her meal, she just can’t help but ask: “Jug, honestly, do you always eat like that? I mean, where do you put it all?”

The corners of his lips curl up. “Ahh, the inevitable question. Well, there is a long, tragic answer to this, or a short, less tragic answer. Which one do you want?”

Betty surveys the other guests in the restaurant. Nobody is paying any attention to them whatsoever, but she feels uncomfortable about him having to detail sad (and probably traumatic) details of his life in public, so she answers: “I think the short, less tragic one will do for now.”

“I’m a growing boy.”

She bursts out into a laugh at that and the slight upturn of his lips progresses into a full-blown smile.

“He is so cute when he smiles.” her brain supplies unhelpfully.

But before she can berate herself for that, Jughead has picked up the menu again and asks: “Do you want to share some dessert?”

The offer throws her off for a second. Sharing dessert seems almost a little bit too second date, but in all honesty, the thought of a good piece of chocolate cake makes her mouth water. And if the size of the whole cake that resides in the display next to the bar is anything to go by, she definitely won’t manage a piece by herself.

So yes, she definitely wants too.

…

They spent the next few days wandering around Prague, checking off almost all the touristy spots on their first day and exploring the nooks and crannies of the city the following two. They eat in little restaurants and she listens to Jughead’s rants about selfie sticks and tourists that use their incredibly expensive Canon cameras to photograph fridge magnets. They go to John Lennon’s wall and Jughead takes the obligatory picture of her for her Instagram. Lately, basically all the pictures she uploads to her Instagram have been taken by him. She doesn’t know why, but in the pictures he takes of her she can never find a fault. He always makes her look like she is glowing, and the pictures never seem posed. 

They take a tour of the four Prague synagogues and the old Jewish cemetery. After they leave the attached museum with its walls and walls full of Jewish Holocaust victims, they both cry. None of them feels up to doing much more that day, so they get two bags full of snacks, bunker up in Jughead’s hotel room and watch “Hogan’s Heroes” until they both can breathe a little easier.

…

The night before they take their train to Warsaw, they make their way to Carl’s bridge, under the assumption that there might be less tourists at nighttime. They couldn’t have been more wrong. The bridge feels even more packed than it had when they’d been here on their first day, but nonetheless Jughead’s manages to get a picture of Betty standing on one of the railings, right next to statute and with the beautifully light castle in the background.

She is just trying to figure out how to get off the railing when he says: “Wait, let me help you.” and catches her around the waist to lift her off the railing so casually that she almost falls onto him in surprise.

He stumbles back two steps and grabs her hip with a second hand in his search for balance and suddenly his face is so close that only with leaning forward a tiny bit more she’d be able to kiss him. They stare at each other for a second and Betty can feel the energy shift in the air between them, but right then someone shoves his way past them from behind and she is crashes back into reality.

Jughead’s hands leave her hips and just like that, the moment is gone.

…

“Well, now that I had the tour of the room and you told me everything about Prague, how about we talk about the topic you’ve been avoiding for the last few days whenever we talked?” Fangs asks her over FaceTime after she makes it back to her hotel room that night.

“What do you mean?” Betty answers, trying to sound nonchalantly and not like she just almost fell off a bridge’s railing because the guy Fangs wants to talk about touched her waist.

“Oh, come on Betty, you know what I’m talking about. How is your new and handsome travel companion? I need an update and I’m sure Sweets would appreciate one too”

“You told Sweet Pea?”

Fangs looks back at her, almost sheepishly. “I’m sorry, I had to. He came over the other day, asking if I had told you anything about the guy you keep tagging in your Instagram pictures. What was I supposed to do? Lie?”

Betty groans and fall back onto the mattress. “No, of course not. But you know how Sweets gets. He is just a little…”

“Protective?” Fangs supplies.

“Yeah. I’m just… there is no reason to, I promise. Jughead… he… he really is genuine and sweet, and he’d never do anything that would make me feel uncomfortable. The other day on the train to Prague, we were talking about childhood nicknames and he said something about how he was sure that my mom had one for me and the second he realized it was a sensitive topic, he changed gears. Honestly, there is no reason for Sweets to get worried.”

“You told him about your mom?” Fangs asks, seemingly surprised.

“Not all of it.” Betty admits. “Just that… it’s a little complicated.”

“So, he doesn’t know that…”

“No, he doesn’t know that you and Sweets had to kick in my front door to get me away before my mentally abusive mother could ship me off to an asylum on my 18th birthday.”

A pit settles in her stomach at the memory. It’s been years but the dread she feels whenever she thinks about it, whenever she thinks about her mother still hasn’t gone away.

Fangs doesn’t say anything for a while, before he asks: “Would you want him to know?”

Betty doesn’t even have to think about her answer.

“Yes.”


	5. Warsaw

_If you hurt her, I will hurt u_

Jughead has been staring at the message he’d received for the better part of the last 30 minutes. It’s early in the morning of the first day him and Betty will spend in Warsaw and the sound of the notification has woken him up. He’d been confused at first. He NEVER gets messages on Instagram. His account only really exists for work purposes and his followers mainly consist of his friends and family, coworkers and some other photography nerds. Lately there had been some people that had come over from Betty’s account after she’d tagged him in the pictures, he’d taken of her in Salzburg and Prague, but he has never in his life gotten a message. It had taken him an embarrassing amount of time to even find out where the message his phone notified him about was in the first place.

After he’d finally figured that out, he’d spent 15 minutes trying to find out who the guy was that had sent him the message and for now he’d deduced two things:

  1. His name apparently was Sweet Pea (Jughead would have laughed about it, but well, should he really?)
  2. He seemed to be a good friend of Betty

He gets the protective urge behind the message. By now, he has had enough conversations with Betty to know that there is something in her past, that she has trouble talking about. And that is okay. They’ve known each other for barely two weeks now, that is not nearly enough time to get a picture of the superficial traits of someone’s personality, let alone their deepest wounds and darkest secrets. Plus, he is pretty sure he’d said the exact same thing to Cheryl when her and Toni started dating. But there is something about that message that irks him, and he doesn’t quite get it until he is standing in front of the bathroom mirror brushing his teeth after his shower.

It’s not the fact that that guy sent him a rather threatening message. It’s not that he did it via Instagram of all places. It’s not that this guy makes conclusions about his character without even knowing him. It’s not even about the fact that he unironically wrote “you” as “u”. It’s the assumption that he’d do anything to hurt Betty.

He’s stopped lying to himself about the fact that he does have crush on her. It is there. He definitely has more than friendly feelings for Betty Cooper. It’s in the way his heart beats way too fast every time she laughs about one of his lame jokes, it is in the way his whole body felt like it just got electrocuted when their hands accidentally touched during their “Hogan’s heroes” marathon in his hotel room in Prague. There is no doubt that he _likes_ her. Just the thought that there is anything he could do to hurt her… no, he could never do that.

He contemplates what to do about the message the whole time until him and Betty agreed to meet for breakfast. There is no reason to type out an answer, because he knows, no matter what he says now, it will come out the wrong way. The only thing he can really do is to talk to Betty about it. This guy is her friend, she will know what to do. He takes a deep breath, pulls his beanie over his ears and heads downstairs for breakfast.

…

“Morning Juggie” Betty greets him happily in front of the breakfast room. He lets her pull him into a one-armed hug and it lingers a little longer than is probably appropriate for two people that are supposed to be just travel companions.

“Morning Betts” he answers when they let go and she leads the way into the breakfast room and towards the rather lavish buffet.

“Did you sleep, okay?” Betty asks.

“I did but uhm… I just...” he focuses unnecessarily hard on pouring himself a cup of coffee, while he tries to figure out how to tell her that one of her friends basically threatened him. “I got an interesting message this morning from uh… someone called Sweet Pea.”

The folk Betty just picked up falls down and clatters on the floor. She swears under her breath as she picks it up from the floor and when she looks at him again, her face is beet red.

“What did he do?” she asks and Jughead can’t decide if she sounds embarrassed or angry.

He pulls out his phone and shows the message to her. “Here.”

Betty exhales loudly and then gives him an apologetic look: “I’m so so sorry, Juggie. I… There is a reason he is like that and I swear I’m going to tell you all about it, just not here. Let’s have breakfast first, then let’s get to the Saxon Gardens and when we find a quiet spot, I’ll tell you, I promise. Can you please take my plate with you? I’ll be right back. I have to yell at someone first.”

She doesn’t wait for his answer, hands him her plate and then storms out of the breakfast room. He looks after her and the first unnecessary thought his brain supplies him with is, that she is kind of sexy like that.

…

Betty slides into the chair across from him 10 minutes later and digs the folk into her now cold eggs with such a force that Jughead flinches a little.

_Note to self: Never make her angry._

“Is he still alive?” he tries, and she looks up at him for a second, before bursting into a giggle.

Ahh, dark humor, his good old friend always works.

“Barely.” she answers. “He definitely won’t send you messages like that anymore. And I’ll probably give him the silent treatment for a few days and NO that is not your fault.” she adds when she sees him open his mouth. “He messed that up and I get where he is coming from but I’m a big girl and take care of myself. Its fine.”

…

Their commute to the Saxon Gardens is uncharacteristically quiet. Betty seems to be in her own head and Jughead doesn’t want to interrupt whatever internal battle she is fighting. It’s not his place.

So, he busies himself with taking some pictures out of the window of their Uber. They mostly turn out horrible, but he needs to occupy his hands, or he is going to reach over and try to comfort her. And that, again is not his place.

_“For now,_” a little, hopeful voice supplies in the back of his head.

…

When they arrive at the Saxon Gardens, it’s thankfully not crowded. Its early April still and around them, everything is blooming. Jughead is itching to capture everything the moment he sets foot into the Gardens, but then Betty does something that surprises him.

She takes his hand.

**She takes his motherf******* hand.**

That jolt, the one that feels like his whole body is being electrocuted runs through him again. However, he doesn’t really have time to think it through, because Betty is pulling him along towards the end of the gardens and beneath a cherry tree that is fully blossoming. She plops down and pats the grass beside her.

“Sit” she says and Jughead obeys.

“Okay.” Betty breaths in deeply. “One thing: I need you to not interrupt me, when I’m telling you about why Sweet Pea is being so protective, because if I stop, I won’t finish the story. The whole thing was very painful and I’m still unpacking some of it. So please, I need you to just let me talk, okay?”

Jughead nods and something like relief seems to shine up in Betty’s face.

“Good.” there is a little pause, during which Betty seems to brace herself for what she is about to say. “I met Sweet Pea and my other best friend Fangs in my junior year when the Highschool on their part of town closed down and all the students came over to our school. Until this day I’m not entirely sure why we hit it off they way we did, but we became instant friends. Fangs would help me run the school newspaper and I’d tutor Sweet Pea in English while he’d help me with Maths. He has a real nag for numbers that one. We would boycott school dances, because we’d think of them as these horrible mainstream things, that we couldn’t care less about. Instead we’d spend our nights at the town’s drive in or at Pop’s, the best diner in the whole town. My mom she… well, she never liked the friendship we had. To be honest, she never liked anything I did. She is… a very difficult and demanding person. Nothing was ever good enough for her. ‘Sit straight Elizabeth, a lady doesn’t slouch like that.’, ‘These grades need to pick up Elizabeth, no Ivy League college wants students with B’s on their report cards’ ‘Young, nice ladies don’t help themselves to second servings, Elizabeth’. I think you get the idea. I’d only later learn that she was being mentally abusive. A few days before my 18th birthday, I’d refuse to go on a date with Archie. You know, the guy from my Instagramaccount. I felt that, right then, just a few months before I was going to go off to college, it just wouldn’t make sense to start dating someone. He didn’t take to well to it and started a rumor about me and Sweet Pea. That he’d seen us making out in the parking lot at Pop’s. It was total bullshit, I love Sweets, but he is like a brother to me and he already was back then, so it didn’t make any sense. For my mom though, it was the last straw. When the rumor got back to her, she decided that I was deviant and completely out of my mind. So, she tried… she tried…” Betty closes her eyes and takes another deep breath. “On the day of my birthday, she tried to have me shipped off to this home for troubled youth. She genuinely thought she’d save me. They were in our house already, but I managed to text Sweet Pea and Fangs in time, and they came flying, kicked our front door in and took me away with them. Fang’s family took me in and hid me away until I got to go to Yale. They didn’t have much themselves, but they shared everything with me and I’ll owe them for the rest of my life. I haven’t spoken to my mother since.”

Jughead is stunned for a second. His parents wouldn’t win any parenting contest in the near future either, but his dad was at least trying to get better right now and his mom… well his mom was an entirely different story. He knows a thing or two about shitty parenting, but this…

Betty is looking at him, waiting for a reaction and honestly, right now he only knows one thing: she didn’t deserve what happened to her. None of it.

“So, you are quiet a fighter, huh?” he asks and Bettys face morphs, first to surprise, then into a brilliant smile. Jughead sighs in relief. Pity has never been the way to go about these things. He knows that from firsthand experience.

When he diverts his attention back to Betty, she is still smiling at him.

“Yes, yes I’m.” she says.


End file.
